Artificial Sweeteners: A Century of Denial

Join next week's virtual conversation about profit, politics, and a 100-year regulatory breakdown

A Virtual Conversation
Monday, September 15 | 7 pm EDT | Zoom

Next Monday, I will be the featured guest of Science Writers in New York for a live virtual conversation about the century-long saga of artificial sweeteners — a story of profit, politics, and regulatory failure that continues to put our health at risk.

I will be speaking with SWINY chair David Levine about the FDA’s miserable record of yielding to industry pressure — first with saccharin, then aspartame, and now erythritol, the latest in a long line of substitutes with proven or potential health risks. Consumers worldwide have unknowingly become unconsented participants in a decades-long health experiment.

Some of what we’ll cover

• The strange history of saccharin, discovered in 1879 and Monsanto’s first product.

• How aspartame, linked to brain tumors in early studies, still won FDA approval in 1981 and quickly became the base of Diet Coke.

• The corporate push to clear saccharin’s name by pouring millions into “safe” studies — and …